Rancho Equestrian Area
Perhaps the most famous collection of neighborhoods in Burbank is the Rancho Equestrian District, flanked roughly by Griffith Park to the south, Victory Boulevard to the east, Olive Avenue to the west and Alameda Avenue to the north. Part of the Rancho community extends into neighboring Glendale.
The neighborhood zoning allows residents to keep horses on their property. Single-family homes far outnumber multifamily units in the Rancho. Many of the homes have stables and stalls. There are about 785 single-family homes, 180 condos and townhomes and 250 horses.
The Rancho has traditionally been represented by the Burbank Rancho Homeowners, which was formed in 1963 by Floran Frank and other equestrian enthusiasts and is the oldest neighborhood group in the city. The community recently stopped the development of a Whole Foods store in the Rancho area.
Rancho real estate sells at a premium due to its equestrian zoning, numerous parks, connection to riding trails in Griffith Park and its adjacency to Warner Brothers and Disney Studios. Riverside Drive, its main thoroughfare, is lined with Sycamore and Oak trees, some more than 70 years old. It is quite common to see people on horseback riding along Riverside Drive's designated horse lanes. Of historical note, the Rancho was the home to T.V. star "Mr. Ed", the talking horse of the early 1960s show of the same name. Other notable former Rancho residents included Ava Gardner, Ronald Reagan and Tab Hunter as well as Bette Davis in the adjoining Glendale Rancho area.
The rancho is especially known for its parks and open space. This includes centrally located Mountain View Park, Johnny Carson Park, Los Angeles' Griffith Park and Equestrian Center, Bette Davis Park (in the adjoining Glendale Rancho) and the neighborhood's beloved Polliwog, extending along Disney's animation building and used by local residents to exercise their horses.
In the 1960s, General Motors Corporation opened training facilities in the Rancho area, but in 1999 decided to contract out dealer-technician training to Raytheon Company and axed a dozen employees. The facility is now primarily a meeting and training venue for automotive-related events. In 2006, GM confiscated EV1 electric-powered cars from drivers who had leased them and moved them to the GM facility in Burbank. When environmentalists determined the location of the cars, they began a month-long vigil at the facility. To challenge the company's line that they were unwanted, they found buyers for all of them, offering a total of $1.9 million. The vehicles were loaded on trucks and removed, and several activists who tried to intervene were arrested.
Read more about this topic: Burbank Police Department (California)
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